(Newser)
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Michael Anti is a well-known Chinese journalist and activist with nearly 36,000 Twitter followers—but since Anti is not the name he was born with, Facebook closed his account on the basis that he wasn’t using his real name. Anti, born Zhao Jing, has used the pen name for more than 10 years and says even his friends call him An Ti. But that wasn’t enough for Facebook, which said it would only accept the name used on his government identity card—even though, as Anti points out, Mark Zuckerberg’s dog is allowed to have a page on the social networking site. "It's insulting. They think my academic and journalistic work is less real than Zuckerberg's dog?" he tells the Guardian.

The incident seems to parallel one in 2005, when Microsoft removed his blog following pressure from Chinese officials. Anti doesn’t know why his page was targeted this time around, since choosing a professional name is common in China, but he suspects someone reported him. Facebook is defending the decision, GlobalPost notes: In an email, a rep for the site explains, “To be clear, Mark Zuckerberg created a Page, not a Profile for his new dog. Creating a Page—rather than a Profile—for Beast is exactly what we recommend for people to do in cases where they want to use Facebook as something other than their real self.”

This definitely sounds like the Chinese government pressuring Facebook to shut down Anti's account. Why do I say this? Because Facebook is full of entertainers who use their stage names to open personal profiles. In some cases there isn't any way Facebook would know an ordinary-sounding name is a stage name, but in other cases it's obvious. Also, there are businesses using profiles (a pet peeve of mine, I have to admit.) So why aren't THEY in trouble? Facebook has better things to do than worry about whether one of the 500+ people named "Sean Smith" is known by the IRS as "Shlomo Shapiro." Facebook DOES worry when a government with whom they'd like to do business says, "This guy is violating your "real name" policy. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

AnonymousCommenter

Mar 10, 2011 12:14 PM CST

The real question here is whether the dog is using its birth name or not.

NoddaAndYou

Mar 10, 2011 11:42 AM CST

This facebook, how dare they provide a service that NO ONE has to use, but every feels the need to bash. It makes it easier for some people to keep in touch, others enjoy playing the games instead of watching their children, and some find it makes stalking possible for those with no investigative skills. The point still remains, you do not have to use it. If you don't use it, great, issue done with. If you do, you should know that you can hide a good majority of your details from everyone but those you give access to. Unless you go installing applications that request full-time access to all your information, but if you give some company access to that, you are doing so of your own free will, and you still cannot bitch. /rant